STAGE TWO: The Spaghetti PhaseThis involves random scribbling and can take place on paper or walls or furniture.

STAGE THREE: The Potato People PhaseThe child draws people that basically look like potatoes with arms and legs coming out of the body. Eyes and a mouth are added at this time.

STAGE FOUR: The Stick Figure PhaseNow people have distinctly separate heads and bodies. Hair (sometimes really, really long hair), noses, fingers, and shoes are added. Girls may add, rainbows, stars, and hearts to their drawings at this time. Boys may add cartoon characters, blood and guts, or cars to their drawings at this time.

STAGE FIVE: The Macaroni PhaseThis is where macaroni, sometimes colored, sometimes plain, is glued to various pieces of construction paper. If you're extra lucky, you'll get a necklace made of macaroni for Mother's Day. If you're not so lucky, yours will be the kid who likes to eat the glued macaroni off the page.

STAGE SIX: The Book PhaseAt this stage, your child is excited that they're learning to read and write and they must make everything into a book. This is the second page in the famous book, The Friendly Ghost written by my son. This is where you have to really stretch your literacy skills and learn to read "kindergartenese". This says, " The ghost plays with his friends like the mummy."

STAGE SEVEN: The Picasso StageThe pictures and color choices don't make a lot of sense, but they sure are fun to look at.

STAGE EIGHT: The Almost Realistic Portrait PhaseHere, the child starts getting some realistic elements into their drawings. This is a picture my daughter drew of me after I had collagen lip augmentation.

Here's something from the Pokemon Phase my son went through.

Here's something from the Star Wars Phase my son went through. Again, note the realism.

STAGE NINE: The Three Dimensional PhaseHere is a candle holder made for me by my daughter.

Here is vessel made by my son. It's perfect for holding cookies, pencils, or organs from mummified people.

144 comments:

I think you've nailed it on the head with the artwork. I have to say, I am a Mormon, and no, passing judgment on other people is very much NOT a part of our doctrine, but we're human and some people do it anyway. I'll do it now--I judge your blog to be very entertaining--and convincing--I've lowered the total number of children I want to have, but my own three also played a major part of that decision.

Your son is actually pretty good for his age! The pokemon sketches are pretty dang wow! :) Be proud and encourage him in it! He might just have the right stuff!

Reminds me of my best friend all through school. His early drawings looked a lot like that and now he's got a degree in Media Art and does amazing work, so who knows? Maybe you've got yourself an animator or picasso on your hands! :D

I love seeing kids' art, the kindergartenese was classic as well! My niece and I did a Christmas book when she was in kindergarten, I had to translate it for the rest of the family to read! hehe

You really need to put warnings before things like this "It's perfect for holding cookies, pencils, or organs from mummified people." Otherwise you have poor defenseless people spitting out coffee all over the keyboard. LOL!

Yes, my oldest son's very talented when it comes to art. The thing that amazes me is he can look at something and just copy it as if it was a Xerox. Instead of sketching out the outlines and filling in more detail as he goes, he starts at one corner of the page and draws every detail as he moves across the page to the other side. I don't know how he does it, but he always manages to get it spaced out and in proportion.

As a former ART student in college, I LOVE LOVE LOVED your presentation, Dawn...and I laughed myself silly over the macaroni comments! Good stuff as usual!

You've got some pretty creative kids there, Dawn! Glad you save all their art (or pictures of it) for posterity.

I know how you feel on the whole 'collagen' lip thing, too, lol. My son drew what I thought was a pretty remarkable family portrait...until on closer inspection I noticed that my lower legs resembled members of the Pachyderm family and not my own. Since then, we jokingly refer to them as "Cankles" (no distinction between calf and ankle).

Love it lol.......my youngest is now 21 if I blink she'll be 22 and I just last Christmas threw out the last crumbling macaroni Christmas tree ornament and star.......I think a 15 year life span for something made in Kindy is a pretty good innings . ps gotta admit I felt kinda sad

Okay, I just have to ask, when you say diaper cream, you are talking about ointment, right?? Because, in the picture, it looks like she dug it out of her diaper. Gorgeous little girl though!! And you take cool pictures, in another photo, it looks like she is wearing the zipper for an earring!

My son, 16, only thinks about drawing. He may be failing two classes, but dang it, he is going to stick to drawing. Dang smart boy too!! His mother and I are getting frustrated with him. What to do???

And I think I am responsible for my children's actions and behaviors. I have been blessed with two children who I am commanded to raise in the way of the Lord. When they become adults, I can no longer be responsible for their actions, hence they will reap the benefits or suffer the consequences. I think this is when they realize, "Damn, I should have listened to my parents!" Then they grow up for real.

FABULOUS!!!!!!!!I love the drawings Im getting these days. I must say though I have been pretty lucky with my youngest she hasnt drawn on any furniture.........yet........ hopefully never lol.I get lots of car pictures from my oldest son though, and love hearts from my girls lol.

That's some seriously good artwork in the later stages - wow!! My 15 year old eldest son draws Pokemon, but they don't look anything like as good as those!Have to admit, I read the kindergartenese pretty darned easily - I guess being a mum for so long has had a profound effect!Jac

I think it's the unselfconsciousness of it all that I love, don't you? You can almost see the sheer enjoyment involved in the process, with no real concern about whether the outcome is what it's "supposed" to be.

Fantastic! Although might I suggest that you missed out the "3 dimensional sculpture created out of cereal boxes and toilet roll centres glued together and painted green" stage. My son outdid himself when, aged 5, he brought home a piece made of 9 (count 'em) shoe boxes glued together. Just carrying it to the car was a major operation.

I love the artwork! The potato was too funny, that's the stage my son is in now! Thanks for mentioning the Screamfree parenting book. I went to Amazon and bought it, because I, ahem, need it for a friend, yeah she's a real screamer. LOL Have a blessed day!!!!

Ok, a couple things. First the Mormon comment. I admit, I don't know much about this religion except that I live near their Garden of Eden (Independence, MO), but my question is, "When did they get all the big family comments, instead of us Catholics!?" When I was growing up with 4 siblings, we always heard, you must be Catholic. Of course, we were. Now that I think of it, one of my daycare providers was Mormon and they had 6 adopted kids. They were great people.

I love the art. I have kids in your ranges (ages 11, 5 and 2) My daughter is in kindergarten and doing the book, except she's a little less advanced so her sentences are a couple letters from each word in a sentence all in caps and crammed together. There is NO WAY to decipher it without her help.

I am sorry to say that after enjoying your blog since August, I'll have to stop reading. I thought I could relate with you, but any mom who can raise six kids and not yell is just not normal! Maybe it's all that coffee I drink. (Note: this is sarcasm)

Finally, did you know that some people cannot understand sarcasm? They have a chemical in their brain (or lack of) to make it possible. Don't know if this is actually true, but I am very much a smarta## and I've run into many people in life that I have to spell it out that I am JOKING! My SOL is one of the worst.

My son is talented at drawing also. My best friend gave him an expensive charcoal drawing kit for his birthday. He would not touch it because he hated the sound of the chalk on the paper. Needless to say I took it over and who knew I could draw. I did about 20 drawings in a month and now for some reason I lost my talent. Oh well, at least I still have them and the one of the toenail fungus dude is hilarious. Kristine in Michigan

I love this post! I'm a bit of a keep it all freak and I would like to know where you KEEP all these treasures! How wonderful that you have them. Not to mention that you are organized enough to find them and take photos of them.

All I remember about MY artwork is that no matter what I drew my mom would say "what a lovely cat." I never drew a cat......if that tells you about how un-artistic I was! Ha, ha.

Your son has great talent with the Pokemon pictures. My brother's friend was actually offered a job drawing cartoons for Disney. You may want to encourage more drawing. I'm just sayin...

Funny how I SO enjoyed seeing all these stages, and even missed a few, when you showed them here in retrospect. In real life (you know, as they're happening) you sometimes miss how precious it is. Especially when they use the walls or themselves as the main art object.

You forgot the Glue Stage, where they become obsessed with glue, and must glue everything they can get their hands on onto a piece of construction paper. The items are usually way too heavy, and slide off the side when you try to pick the paper up, leaving a trail of sticky half dried glue, which attaches itself to your clothes, carpet, etc.

I was a macaroni eater myself. Mine was painted with gold paint & necessitated a call to Poison Control. Thankfully my boys have so far steered clear of eating their projects. The baby on the other hand has already tasted a few of her brothers masterpieces so I guess I know who my glue eater is going to be.

About two weeks ago my husband and I were talking in our bedroom when I realized our 2 year old son was being very quiet. When I sent my husband to find out why the boy was being so silent he discovered that our son had gotten the diaper rash cream out and painted himself and his dresser. We tossed him in the tub to clean him off but I still have not gotten it out of his clothes and have about given up on them. I caught him in the baby’s room a few days later, this time painting her crib. The diaper rash cream now has a new, much higher, home.

Dawn,I loved the artwotk. Please save some of them for when your kids get older to see. No i'm not a parent yet. I had many nieces and nephews. That are growed up and have kids. I miss the artwork I had recieved. I had kept alot of their ornaments. Here is something for your blog yesterday. I don't think many had read it yesterday. Enjoy !!!!!!!!!!!!!! Susan

A TEST CALLed "ARE YOU READY TO BE A PARENT?????"

MESS TEST>Smear peanut butter on the sofa and curtains. Place a fish stick>behind the couch and leave it there all summer.>>TOY TEST>Obtain a 55-gallon box of LEGOS (or you may substitute roofing>tacks). Have a friend spread them all over the house. Put on a>blindfold. Try to walk to the bathroom or kitchen. Do not scream>because this would wake a child at night.>>GROCERY STORE TEST>Borrow one or two small animals (goats are best) and take them>with you as you shop. Always keep them in sight and pay for>anything they eat or damage.>>DRESSING TEST>Obtainone large, unhappy, live octopus. Stuff into a small net>bag making sure that all the arms stay inside.>>FEEDING TEST>Obtain a large plastic milk jug. Fill halfway with water. Suspend>from the ceiling with a cord. Start the jug swinging. Try to>insert spoonfuls of soggy cereal into the mouth of the jug, while>pretending to be an airplane. Now dump the contents of the jug on>the floor.>>NIGHT TEST>Prepare by obtaining a small cloth bag and fill it with 8-12>pounds of sand. Soak it thoroughly in water. At 3:00 p.m. begin>to waltz and hum with the bag until 9:00 p.m. Lay down your bag>and set your alarm for 10:00 p.m. Get up, pick up your bag, and>sing every song you have ever heard. Make up about a dozen more>and sing these too until 4:00 a. m. Set alarm for 5:00 a.m. Get>up and make breakfast. Keep this up for 5 years. Lookcheerful.>>INGENUITY TEST>Take an egg carton. Using a pair of scissors and pot of paint,>turn it into an alligator. Now take a toilet paper tube and turn>it into an attractive Christmas candle. Use only scotch tape and>a piece of foil. Last, take a milk carton, a Ping-Pong ball, and>an empty box of Cocoa Puffs. Make an exact replica of the Eiffel>Tower.>>AUTOMOBILE TEST>Forget the BMW and buy a station wagon. Buy a chocolate ice cream>cone and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there. Get a>dime. Stick it into the cassette player. Take a family size>package of chocolate chip cookies. Mash them into the back seat.>Run a garden rake along both sides of the car. There, perfect.>>PHYSICAL TEST (Women)>Obtain a large bean bag chair and attach it to the front of your>clothes. Leave it there for 9 months. Now remove 10 of thebeans.>>PHYSICAL TEST (Men)>Go to the nearest drug store. Set your wallet on the counter. Ask>the clerk to help himself. Now proceed to the nearest food store.>Go to the head office and arrange for your paycheck to be>directly deposited to the store. Purchase a newspaper. Go home>and read it quietly for the last time.>>FINAL ASSIGNMENT>Find a couple who already have a small child. Lecture them on how>they can improve their discipline, patience, tolerance, toilet>training and child's table manners. Suggest many ways they can>improve. Emphasize to them that they should never allow their>children to run wild. Enjoy this experience. It will be the last>time you will have all the all the answers.>

Dawn, I love you & your blogs EVERY ONE of them give me the power to go on with only 4 kids (husband is on business trips all the time). I actually LOOK FORWARD to seeing a fresh blog DAILY from you. Too bad their are a few creeps out there. (maybe they are funny in their own way!)? maybe... My first time to every comment and well-deserved praises to you! Especially w/ the no yell tactics... my throat is getting sore from all that (ha ha!) Never got to see you on TV but I enjoyed checking out the computer link to it. About your horrible weekend: please let me know that you did FIND SOMEWHERE to eat a unique dinner with your husband??? You actually got 'date' time but no real date!?! He deems much praise for that blog about working all day then spending/wasting several more hours pulling out toilet. You rock Mr. Meehan!!! Just had to tell him I empathize. (2 days after that story, my 3 year old pulled off 1/2 roll of toilet paper and tried to get it to flush. Thank God no foul water escaped the bowl...however I had to manually retrieve that massive clump. Again, you & your blogs are a highly IMPORTANT part of my day and ALL of your Fantastic Humor is APPRECIATED!!

Hi Dawn, Amazing Artwork!! We are still in the scribbling on the walls, toys, arms, feet and sisters phase over here! I have a question for any of your fan readers. We carved our pumpkins already (yep a bit overly excited for Halloween)Well, you guessed it, they are moldy. Does anyone have any suggestions? Or are our pumpkins a bust?? Open to any ideas, thank you! http://momof4girls.blogspot.com/

WOW!! You have this right on the head! Your son seems to have a flair for art :o) My sister does. I think right now we're at a few different stages here...I counted 5 that I could positively identify LOL

Hope you're not feeling like "mud" today, that the dirt is gone and you're back to being water...calm, cool, and lots of fun! Have a great day!

I love the writing books stage. It's a lot like watching/listening to them learning to talk, but you get a written record of it to keep.

My biggest problem with young artists is getting them to stop a picture while it still looks good. They keep going and eventually the great picture is obscured and the page looks like it was dipped in mud.

Oh yes, you've got that described perfectly! We're in stages two, four and six here... Although our kindergartenese is progressing to 'first-grade-ese', which is still fairly difficult to decipher but at least involves punctuation... :)

So far we are in the potato people stage, although lately she has taken to filling in every bit of the paper with color (no white space ever!). They're actually quite fun. Maybe I should post some of them. I'm looking forward to the macaroni and clay art. She's already making shapes from play doh and leaving them to harden. Eventually they do disintegrate though. My mother still has the macaroni shell cigar box my sister made for her some 30-odd years ago.

My 7 children constantly make artwork for me, I have run out of room for it and now wait until they are at school to throw some away. Does that make me a bad mother? While waiting in the hall for me last year at a parent teacher conference, my kids ate their classmates artwork off the walls. When asked about it they responded, "Then they shouldn't have used food, we were hungry." Does that make them bad kids?

Ha. Loved this art lesson. My mom still has the photo of me when I went through the body art stage with a tube of her bright red lipstick. (and I am 39) Priceless. Your son must have a photographic memory or something. It's great. Calfkeeper

HA! I love the pokemon drawings. My 10 year old draws pokemon everywhere too. I'd like to think it's a phase he's going through but he's been into pokemon since he was 3 and he's now taught my 4 year old EVERYTHING about pokemon. It's actually a little sick that they can both sit there and have an hours long conversation about pokemon and nothing else. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before the baby starts toddling around saying "pika pika pika"

Looks like I've got a typical child. We are now in the book phase and at p/t conferences last night had a lesson on how to read kindergartenese so of course when I read your post today I was cracking up.

Stage 1 would not be so bad if my daughter didn't consider HER POOP right up there with vanilla pudding!!! UUUUGGGGHHHH ... biggest mess EVER (and just this week!). Needless to say, I wasn't brave enough to take pictures.

My mom has a whole binder of this kind of thing from my brother and I. We both turned out to be very talented and I used to sell stuff in high school to make money because mom wouldn't let me get a job.

Give your kids Legos, they might grow up to be engineeres like my big brother and I did.

so where in there is the preteen stage that starts to draw skulls and other "weird" boy things on their skateboards, folders for school, and any other surface he can find. Loved the art work, thanks for the trip down years of art work.

My 3 year old daughter (she has 4 older brothers and two younger sisters) came up to show me her latest drawing. It looked a lot like your potato people - but with very harsh, dark eyes. I asked her who it was and she ever so sweetly replied "it's crabby mommy" Sigh...at least my head wasn't lifted off of my body, turning in circles!

Love your blog, some days it's my only contact with the outside, adult world!

We're big on art around here, I've got eight kids, 20-2 and it's amazing how much paper and crayons, etc my kids go through. My two year old voted and she liked the pink stick figure the best :)

People just tend to stereotype women with large families. People always tell me well you must be Mormon or Catholic. Yep I'm Mormon, but I think I would've stopped long ago if I had different kids. I just take them one at a time. I've had girls say they'd rather babysit for me than for some people with only two. Instead of being birth control I find that my large family and my lack of perfection makes others realize hey why not have a big family if that's the way it turns out! So what if my 2 yr old has to wear tights to church because the marker hasn't worn off yet :) Glad I found your site.

Loved the artwork! I have a 5 year old that is quite the artist, and 2 year old twins that are in the "spaghetti phase". My leather ottoman was the first victim of this phase with silver paint pen as the art tool of choice. I tried to clean it, and it just took all the orange dye off the leather and left the paint. Oh well! It has character now-- along with sippy cup spill stains and car wheel scratches, it is a unique piece of furniture! My twins say "Uh Oh! No! No! No!" everytime they see it, and it brings a smile to my face to remember seeing their little hands covered in silver, and their faces when I saw my ottoman. (although I was not smiling then!) Love my kids...and all the phases they go through.

Ok, this may sound strange, but I had a dream about you last night! My husband and I were on our honeymoon again on Vancouver Island, up here in "beautiful British Columbia" (hey, that's what our licesnce plates say). We were driving through a national park that was surrounded by gorgeous old growth forests and was filled with local merchants occupying little treehouse-type stores. I saw the image of you and your kids that's currently at the top of your blog, carved out of a wooden sign. (I dunno what you could have possibly been selling - your books? Your kids? haha.) I MADE my husband pull in the car there - he didn't understand why it was so important for me to go in and meet you, but when we went in, for some reason you were "unavailable." Probably doing interviews with Fox, NBC and the rest of the networks. :)

Anyway, I thought I would just pass on how much influence you are having on people - I don't even have kids yet and you're already infiltrating our dream worlds! Keep up the good work, Dawn. I read your blog daily.

Dawn, when precisely does the stage 2 "Spaghetti" phase completely pass? My 7 year old daughter thinks it's fun to write on furniture and walls when she's mad. How do I know it's when she's mad? No guessing, she writes the word, "MAD." However, I hold out some hope we're moving to stage three, because the other day she came home with a pumpkin drawn around her belly button. That was the nose, duh! I wish I had taken a pic, but I hold out hope she'll do it again. How demented is that? By the way, I just ordered "Screamfree Parenting." That way, when I see the word mad written on her furniture I can calmly choose not to let my neighbors hear what a bad choice she made! Thanks for the info!

I love the picture for Stage Seven. Hey, they were just following the directions, Character Counts! That bear...dog...thing...definitely has a lot of character.

If your son can draw by starting in one corner and just going and still gets the proportions correct, that boy has some talent (and a very photographic minds' eye)! I can't even do that and I'm an artist! Very impressive. Don't ever tell him you can't make a living as an artist, thanks to the Internet you can make a very good one!

Oh my goodness I am laughing so hard. You've got it perfect! I am sure looking forward to the realism and candle holder stage. And can I just say again how grateful I am to you for making this fabulous blog that helps me laugh at this job called Motherhood. Good Job Dawn!

Not saying you kindergartenese isn't as good as mine or anything, but I think it might say "The ghost plays with his friends like the mummy". I think I own that book, did you get it published? Maybe 50 times with different characters and drawings but the same basic story? I thought you might have, just checking.

This is seriously funny and so very true! Your son is a great artist! I am just in utter amazement that you had all of those drawings, in decent shape to post. It would take me about a week to find all of that!!!! Great work :)

Okay, how come I never got past the stick figure phase? Luckily, my kids inherited their fathers artistic abilities and all I have to do is smile at their successes.You're great! And your kids are talented, just like their mother;)

I love this blog today. I do everyday, but this is just so neat! And you are so right. All four of my kids are in the different "phases" of art and it's so fun to see the different things they do. I appreciate you for the fact that you put things into perspective for others such as myself. Of course, I love your humor, too.

In retrospect, I think my favorite stage is the body art. However, I can say that from the safe distance of fifteen years since my youngest was a babe. I think it's my favorite because it looks so funny, and I don't have to clean any of it up anymore! Although with seven of them myself, I did my share of cleaning up kids, too.

Have you considered art lessons for your kids? Not because they're terrible, but because they're so great! Especially your son, is he fantastic at art in school? Art lessons would only help them increase their skills, I would think. I hope I don't sound too insulting or anything, because I don't want this taken in the wrong way. Everyone, even the most talented, can use advice from others. Just a suggestion.

You must have an entire closet full of art supplies :). How fun for the kids.

Dawn,Another Mormon Mommy here...telling you that i'm sorry that people are such jerks. Please don't think that all of us are that jerky. Because, well...I love you and your little family to pieces!!! Love the artwork! Your children are really talented! It's amazing!You successfully made me laugh again!

Your kids are very creative! How do you find the time to do all of this. You also made their Halloween customs. You're a children's Martha Stewart! I always take a few minutes to read your blog every day no matter what. God bless you.

That was great. I especially liked the jar for mummified organs LOL!! I have many similar artworks around my house with three littles. I must say most of mine are on the walls, closet doors and tables though. Hey, it will save us from having to repaint them right...A nice personal, "homey" look.

This is hilarious!!! You've nailed it-I've got one in the ENDLESS BOOK STAGE, except he has me SPELL EVERYTHING-I've found myself not really spelling everything he wants me to to speed up the process, but then have to remember what he said so I can read it back to him--how pathetic & lazy of me. Our little girl is in the cross between potato and stick-I laughed so hard when you described it. Good work.:)

Okay...so this doesn't relate to the art, but I wanted to make sure you saw it. I was looking through your older postings and came accross pictures of you when you were younger. I just had to tell you that your young babester looks a lot...a lot like you when you were little. :)

Oh, please tell me.... where does graffiti fit in here. My 3 year old just painted our deck this past weekend with a can of spray paint.

I've enjoyed reading your posts. I have 6 kids also so I can relate. You have helped me to see the lighter side of all the crazy things that happen. For that I thank you! My kids, I'm sure, would second that.

My daughter turns 15 in a few days and she and her friends are still in the body painting stage - she will often come home with drawings on her arms done in permanent marking pen. When she was around 3 she decided to write her name in permanent pen on the side of the leather lounge. She then proceeded to try to blame it on her older sister but her Dad was quick to point out that Sophie would have used her own name and not hers :)Love the blog!

Hi DawnLoved todays post.Your children are so talented and I wondered if at some time you could dedicate a small amount of space to your site for a picture gallery for them? That way they can be famous too.Keep up the good work supermom, glad to hear you're feeling a bit better and don't forget to have a great time on vacation.

My daughter is two years old.I am sure she will go through all the painting stages. But I am a bad mum. I keep all her pencils and pens in a box in a place where she can not reach since last time she did mess on the wall of our new house. Maybe I should give her penciles back.

As a mother of eight, I totally appreciate kid artwork. This is an inspiration for me to post pics of my own kids artwork on my blog. You have a great blog, Dawn. I am a new blogger and plan to model my blog after yours. Beautiful baby girl :)

I'm smack dab in themiddle of the body art phase with my two year old at the moment ( he's #3 of 4). Secretly, I think he's going to ba covered in tats when he's grown, because he's so addicted to drawing on himself! :)

We got a forward about your eBay listing and about died laughing. Our two sons are quite the handful and have only gotten started with their antics. Thank you for you wry sense of humor and your honesty about it all. I'll be watching your blog for any updates you may have.

I am not sure the company I work for will be happy if they read this, but I got the silent giggles reading this entry and ever so slightly peed my pants just now...those darn Kegel exercises did not take vewey well....Thankin' you for the grin!

I love the stick lady - fantastic! I am a jewellery artist dedicated to turning children's drawings into jewellery and am always surfing the web for examples of drawings. I am researching for a new online gallery I am planning for my website to celebrate the creativity of children and wondered if you would be interested in displaying your children’s drawing there? My website can be found at http://www.amjewellery.co.uk